We request funds to support the 3rd biannual Conference on Cell Death, to be held at El Escorial Monastery, near Madrid, Spain. The theme of the conference will be "Cell Maintenance and Cell Death". As our corollary of the concept of homeostasis as it pertains to cell number: in the equation mitosis=cell death, both sides of the equation may be regulated, and this regulation is vital for our health and well-being. This meeting recognizes the now international reach of the Cell Death Society which has grown since 1995 to over 400 subscribing members. The meeting falls in the off- year avoiding conflicts with the Keystone, Gordon, and Cold Spring Harbor meetings. We focus on the broader aspects of cell death throughout life, maintaining an interest in the importance and mechanism of natural occurrence of cell death in development, differentiation, fertility, and aging as well as disease. We emphasize the similarities and differences between paradigmatic lymphocyte apoptosis and that occurring in neurons or in other tissues and development and aging, examining signaling mechanisms, intracellular location and translocation, and caspases and other proteases. We emphasize the impact of failure in several disease situations, and we draw parallels among the signaling mechanisms in tissues as diverse as thymocytes, central and peripheral neurons, malignant cells, and cells under the control of viral genes. We focus on processes, asking the speakers and attendees from several disciplines to pay attention to common elements and to note how emphases can differ for instance, among neurons, thymocytes, and other types of cells, and among development, aging, and pathology This conference will force the comparison of cell-supportive mechanisms and cell-destructive mechanisms, raising questions of when absence of cell support is sufficient to induce apoptosis and when positive signals to self- destruct is needed. Following requests from our foreign adherents, we elected to move the meeting to Spain for this symposium. The El Escorial Monastery provides a combination of easy access plus excellent accommodations and facilities and was selected after a review of several possible sites.